Review: Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen
Author: Gina Chen
Edition: eARC
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (July 26, 2022)
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Synopsis
Violet is a prophet and a liar, influencing the royal court with her cleverly phrased—and not always true—divinations. Honesty is for suckers, like the oh-so-not charming Prince Cyrus, who plans to strip Violet of her official role once he’s crowned at the end of the summer—unless Violet does something about it.
But when the king asks her to falsely prophesy Cyrus’s love story for an upcoming ball, Violet awakens a dreaded curse, one that will end in either damnation or salvation for the kingdom—all depending on the prince’s choice of future bride. Violet faces her own choice: Seize an opportunity to gain control of her own destiny, no matter the cost, or give in to the ill-fated attraction that’s growing between her and Cyrus.
Violet’s wits may protect her in the cutthroat court, but they can’t change her fate. And as the boundary between hatred and love grows ever thinner with the prince, Violet must untangle a wicked web of deceit in order to save herself and the kingdom—or doom them all.
My Review of Violet Made of Thorns
Violet Made of Thorns is a YA fantasy novel with an enemies-to-lovers romance and a fairy tale twist that ultimately didn’t quite meet my expectations.
I received a free digital eARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review
Expectations and Disappointments
I went into Violet Made of Thorns expecting a fun fantasy enemies-to-lovers romp with a snarky main character and some fairy tale magic twisted into exciting directions. Unfortunately, I was left mostly disappointed!
Violet Made of Thorns felt largely unfocused and chaotic, it took me quite a while to get into it and then I felt like the book wasn’t really going where I expected! With the setup of various prophecies, a bride, dooming war and a dying magical forest, I was waiting for some kind of quest or travel element! Instead, all the action barely leaves the palace. The plot developments felt fairly passive for most of the book and then the last 10% just went wild but none of the developments felt particularly earned!
Too Many Ideas, Too Little Depth
Overall, I felt like the world building was lacking depth and with all the fairy tale tropes and political workings, nothing was explored in depth in favour of packing in as many ideas as possible. In many ways, this felt like a prequel and I found the ending to be utterly unsatisfying. Most of the questions about different magics, political intrigues and the future of the kingdom remain just as nebulous as they did at the start of the book. As a reader, this makes me feel like I haven’t gained much from joining these characters on their adventure because few things feel like they have changed in meaningful ways, or at least we don’t get to stick around long enough to see those changes in action!
Morally Grey Witch and Her Enemy/Lover
However, I do love Violet. She’s cold and snarky and I appreciate that she didn’t change much throughout the book! So often these kinds of “unlikeable” female main characters end up being “softened by love” or something of the sort and I love that Violet gets to be her delightfully insufferable self all the way through the end.
The enemies-to-lovers romance was enjoyable and was the aspect of the book that felt the most earned and explored to me as a reader. Cyrus and Violet have a history, are at odds in their views on life and political goals and overall have very good reasons to not like each other…but just as many to be a terribly good match.
Overall…
…Violet Made of Thorns was a bit of a let-down for me personally but I still mostly enjoyed my time with it.
This book is for you if…
…you like enemies to lovers stories where they both hate that they don’t hate each other
…you are looking for a fairytale-ish fantasy novel with a stubborn heroine
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2 Comments
dbsguidetothegalaxy
Heads up! Your Goodreads and StoryGraph link goes to We’ll Never Tell by Wendy Heard (enjoyed that) 💜.
Literally all you need to say is enemies-to-lovers and I’m there. I’m easy that way 😂 Sorry that you didn’t like it as much as you thought you would!
bookshelfsoliloquies
oh thanks so much for letting me know, i guess the links didn’t update correctly so I’ll fix that asap 😂 and honestly, the enemies to lovers vibes were really fun!! I just think the book tried to do too much at once so nothing really got to shine as much as it could’ve. But if you’re looking for those vibes, definitely give this a shot! Violet’s snarky narration and her changing thoughts about Cyrus did make for some great tension. If you end up reading it, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 👀